Lift the glass & say cheers! It's the time to pour wine

Guwahati:New Year revellers in Assam can raise a toast as the state government has decided to allow wine shops to extend their business hours from 11 am to 10 pm. Liquor shops currently operate from 2 pm to 10 pm. It has also decided to reduce the number of dry days in a year from 28 to 4. This move is likely to generate an additional annual revenue of `400 crore for the state.

Assam Excise Minister Parimal Suklabaidya told ET: “We have not taken (the decision) solely for revenue. The prime driving factor behind this move is public health.“

The previous Congress-led government, which was in power early this year, had clamped many restrictions. Due to restrictions, people have been consuming spurious liquor, he claims.

“During several raids, we recovered huge quantities of liquor, majority of which was spurious. In the interest of the health of those consuming liquor we have decided to increase the business hours and reduce the number of dry days,“ he said. Suklabaidya added that there was no point in restricting the availability of liquor to just a few hours.

“In the last fiscal, the excise department generated `799 crore revenue while in this fiscal year we are expecting it to cross `1,200 crore.“

Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal has set the target for excise revenue collection at `1,800 crore for 2016-17.According to state government records, about 39,085 litres of foreign liquor on an average is being sold daily. Assam had 1,448 licensed wine shops selling foreign liquor.

The excise department has also constituted a committee to gather feedback from the public on whether dry days should be observed on important religious festival days in the state. A group of eleven organisations, called `Maad Mukta Asom Dabi Samity' (MMADS), has been demanding a Bihar-style total prohibition of liquor in the state.